


Negotiations

by reafterthought



Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Savers | Digimon Data Squad
Genre: Fake Relationship, Gen, Revenge, Street fighting, can't handle the Daimon siblings, drabblechap, ffn challenge: becoming the tamer king challenge, ffn challenge: diversity writing challenge, ffn challenge: ultimate sleuth challenge, reasons for fighting, sibling relationships, word count: 1501-2500 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-02 16:56:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17267885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reafterthought/pseuds/reafterthought
Summary: Kouki was going to pay Masaru back, and thensome.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for:
> 
> Diversity Writing Challenge, e9 – drabble novel with chapters under 500 words  
> Ultimate Sleuth Challenge, Ch 2 – DLC quest 2/Kowloon level 1 - Write for the prompt 'an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind'./write a drabblechap  
> Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Training Peak – drabblechap/ficletchap

Masaru probably doesn't even remember him. The luxury of being the winner, to be able to forget the faces of the countless defeated like they're blurs that run into each other. Unless he's stood out enough and his pride wants it so sorely to be the case, but he doubts it. The next time they cross paths, the other doesn't even glance his way and he's radiating a glare fierce enough to melt steel, if there's any stock to that saying.

But Kouki remembers. Remembers the pain of a dislocated jaw, of teeth knocked out (and now he has a pretty gap where two teeth should have been because he's a teenager and teeth don't grow back anymore) and other, less permanent, aches and pains and swellings of skin. And a bit of blood, where his knuckles had scraped teeth – and why had his knuckles and his teeth gotten the blow for that? It's not fair.

And next time, it won't end that way.


	2. Chapter 2

Masaru has a little sister. That's off limits, and he knows it, but a little sister is a weakness, especially when she comes dashing up before school with his lunch.

"What a good little sister," he says, with just the right amount of drawl to make his eyes flash.

He might as well be a new face and not an old one on take two before that, but when the teen tries to clock him and misses, he knows he's left his mark. Or he thinks.

Unfortunately, the next strike fells him anyway, and he spits blood on the ground as the brother and sister stalk off.

_You'd better remember me this time._


	3. Chapter 3

He doesn't remember. That bastard doesn't remember, again. Either the little sister is a weakness he flaunts and he's confident he can protect, or he doesn't care as much as a brother should.

Watching them from a distance, he thinks there's at least a bit of the latter involved. But he at least knows rage - however fleeting - makes him careless. Unlike him: rage makes him smarter. Rage makes him more callous as well. Targeting the little sister is wrong.

But he'll beat Marcus Daimon at least once, no matter what it takes, no matter what lines he has to cross, no matter what he loses in the process. Because he’s a loner boy, and he’s already lost his most important thing: his pride.


	4. Chapter 4

Kristy Daimon winds up reinforcing his idea that Marcus isn't the world's most caring big brother - or caring individual, stat. She's also remarkably like her big brother - in that she doesn't remember him at all.

 

This time, though, it works to his favour. Kristy is happy to have someone to offload on, someone who doesn't think her brother's the king of the streets or a face to pound into the dust (and never mind that he is technically the latter, because if she doesn't remember, he doesn't have to tell her, does he?)

 

And so he sneaks into her life: the high school student who’s nice enough to hang around with an elementary schooler because he’s always wanted his own sibling (lies, all lies), and he’s indifferent to Marcus too (lies, again).

 

But Kristy doesn’t need to know, right now, that they’re lies.


	5. Chapter 5

Marcus hears about Kristy’s new friend, Kouki. How can he not? He sees him a few times as well, but never manages to put two and two together. Just grins and waves them off and warns Kouki to be a perfect gentleman if he doesn’t want a knuckle sandwich and Kouki seems to take heed of that threat (or otherwise he doesn’t need it) because Kristy never comes back with complaints.

Actually, she seems to come back with less complaints than when she left. But Marcus shrugs it off because it’s good that Kristy’s got a friend like that, even if it is a boy and at least three years older than her, and he knows he’s a bratty brother at times and he gets into more fights than he should…

But he needs to, and he needs to win as well, because the only one who and defend Kristy and their mother is him.


	6. Chapter 6

Maybe it's the wrong way to go about it, but people have always picked on him and Kristy for growing up without a dad, and for a kid like him, the best weapons are fists.

Because he's not smart. He always has to take his math tests in duplicates, and sometimes his science ones as well. But he was tall, and he picked up fighting pretty fast. Right instincts or something.

So he gets into a lot of fights. And he builds his reputation based on that because that reputation protects him later on. Those who can hurt more with words get scared, because they know his fists will be after them if they talk. It's only the ones who think they can take him, fist for fist, that still bother. And they leave Kristy and their mum alone.

And that's the way it should be, because he's defending them.


	7. Chapter 7

Kouki isn’t a very patient person, all in all. When he’s angry, it’s a white hot anger that fizzles out quickly…usually. But that’s also because he’s known to fly off the handle with little things. It’s different when it’s his pride that’s been pounded into the dirt and more than once. That’s a cold, ice-type of anger and it lasts longer. It takes a long time before it melts, and by then it’s left scars. Deep scars.

 

And that cold anger of his is what lets him be patient this time. Let’s him bear with Kristy, and he doesn’t tolerate her. Not at all. He just pretends to. Her whining gets on his nerves now, even with the barbs against Marcus she throws into them.

 

It makes it easier though, to fester that annoyance with her along with his cold anger at her brother.


	8. Chapter 8

He wonders how long he’ll wait. Marcus thinks he’s a friend of his sister’s, a friend of the family. Their mother thinks so too. And Kristy’s birthday is coming up. How mad Marcus will be if he spoils that for her.

 

How mad indeed. The idea makes him laugh, and revenge really is a dish best served cold and best served in the depths of summer when the cold can be most appreciated.

 

And it’s been long enough. Maybe not that long. A few months, but long enough. He wants to feel Marcus’ flesh bruising under his knuckles. Break a few teeth and his nose. Maybe break a bone as well: leave a permanent scar.

 

And this time, Marcus won’t forget.


	9. Chapter 9

Kristy’s excited. She doesn’t have many friends, but Kouki’s nice. Never mind he’s older. Never mind it’s more of a reason for the guys and girls at school to not talk to her, and Marcus is her older brother. He has to be a mix of plain annoying and menacing enough to scare away any potential bullies but also anyone who might want to strike a tentative friendship with her.

 

It’s just a good thing it doesn’t seem like much fazes Kouki. Or much like that, anyway. Deeper in, a lot of things faze Kouki. He always seems to wander around with a short fuse. Makes him somewhat similar to Marcus too. And believable, because guys with short fuses also wear their hearts on their sleeves.

 

She’s glad he’s going to be at this year’s birthday. Even if silly Marcus has another make-up test.


	10. Chapter 10

It’s perfect. Kristy’s birthday, and Marcus is a no show because he failed another science test. Not even one of the obligatory math fails, but science, which he passes about half the time. Kouki allows himself a snort, because it’s worked out too well, especially with Sarah busy at work – which means it’s just the two of them.

 

He’s not even sorry for the girl he’s going to send home in tears, because his mind is somewhere else. He’s preparing his ice-cold dish of revenge – and Kristy is going to make some delicious ice-cream.

 

And it’s so easy to make her crumble, make her cry. She’s got a mouth to her, when he sets her off, but it’s nothing and she runs, wailing. She trips and falls and he watches her, and she picks herself up and sets off again.

 

_Bye bye, Kristy. And hello again Marcus._


	11. Chapter 11

Marcus doesn’t miss it. How can he? His sister’s standing in front of his classroom door in tears and all dirtied up. And on her birthday to boot.

 

‘What happened?’ he asked, concerned. And inside, he’s boiling because he knows it has to be someone’s fault. She’s not clumsy. She doesn’t just trip and fall – and wasn’t she spending the day with –

 

‘Kouki!’ she shrieks, still crying and he can’t help but give her a hug because he’s her brother and that right there is pulling at his heart-strings. ‘That jerk!’

 

Jerk indeed. And anyone who messed with his little sister was going to pay _hell_.

 

And even his teachers knew not to get in the way of that.

 

‘Uhh… be back tomorrow to finish your retest.’

 

He doesn’t even hear. The teacher knows he’ll have to call home for the message to be noted.


	12. Chapter 12

Marcus is pissed. Of course he’s pissed.

 

He’s also still a better fighter than Kouki and that _grates_ because Kouki has all the advantages, and he’s still getting pounded. It’s not fair. And now he’s probably going to wind up with a concussion because Marcus is slamming him into the –

 

‘Stop!’ Kristy shrieks, and Marcus, startled by her interruption, stops.

 

Kouki is startled too, and the chance to take advantage of the disruption slips away when Kristy gets in between them. Because he can’t hit Kristy. Marcus will kill him.

 

Hope would have killed him, if Hope wasn’t on the other side of Japan.


	13. Chapter 13

When Kristy demands an explanation, he gives it. Because…why not? His epic plan for revenge falls through the roof because he still can’t handle a punch from Marcus Daimon. And now he feels rotten about making Kristy cry for it too.

 

And she’s about to start again. ‘Was it all fake?’

 

Yes was the answer he would have given. But it’s not quite true. He’s not a patient person. And Kristy was a side-road to that revenge.

 

More likely, Kristy was a reminder of Hope. He’s not lucky enough to have a real sister, little street-rat that he is. But Hope is a street-rat too, and street-rats stick together until things dry up, and then they move apart.

 

Real families, like Marcus and Kristy, stick together longer.

 

Or not really, because Kristy explains that Marcus is the way he is because their dad’s not around any more.


	14. Chapter 14

He gets it. Everyone fights for different reasons, and sometimes those reasons but heads, like that last time he’d fought with Marcus, over making his sister cry. Silly reason. Hope won’t like it, because Kristy’s not a pampered rich girl, but she won’t have minded if it was a pampered rich girl getting the 101 on life.

 

But hurting her because he’s got a grudge against her older brother and her older brother’s got his own reasons to fight everything on two legs that looks at him wrong? That’s a whole other matter.

 

He gets it. And he kind of likes Kristy, annoying as she is.

 

He still doesn’t like Marcus though. He doesn’t need to either. So long as they’re not trying to crack each other’s skulls open again. And he won’t. He promises Kristy.

 

Marcus promises Kristy too.


End file.
